At last the Symbian phaseout is almost complete. Only 2.2 million Symbian handsets were sold in the quarter. The rest of smartphone sales (9.6 million units) consisted of Asha full touch phones. Asha is a popular low-cost option in developing markets and uses its own proprietary bare-bones operating smartphone operating system.

Nokia Lumia 920

While smartphone sales are down almost 20 percent from the 19.6 million units Nokia moved last year, the drop off was less severe than analysts were expecting. And the fact that roughly two-thirds of Nokia high-end smartphones are now Windows Phone indicates that the transition is almost finished.

As a result of the cost cutting coupled with stronger sales, Nokia says it has achieved underlying profitability again. That's a huge development for the OEM who endured severalpainful quartersof large losses. Nokia estimates it pocketed €30M ($39.8M USD) in non-recurring IPR income on total sales of €3.9B ($5.2B USD).

Overall Nokia sales of all mobile devices fell to 79.6 million units -- from a volume of 113 million units last year. Nokia recently lost its global lead in handset (including non-smartphone sales) to South Korea's Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930).

Nokia stock jumped up over 20 percent in early trading on the hopeful news.

Gartner, Inc. (IT), a top mobile research firm, has estimated that by 2015 that Windows Phone will be the #2 smartphone platform in the world, bumping Apple and its increasingly-dated Palm-style user interface to third place.

Ive waited until my phone finally died...I didn't like the currently selection of Windows phones for Verizon (I wanted the larger screen of the 920) and went with Android again. Nokia lost a sale by waiting so long and I'm sure a lot more.

You can't really blame Nokia on that. AT&T offered them a really good deal to do a 6 month exclusive on it. That means featured product promotion, advertising, employee training, etc..

AT&T was the first with the iPhone, so that is an old dog to them now (even the 5). I don't mean its not popular, it is just a staple of AT&T service. Everyone knows what an iPhone is and if they want one, they know they can get it on AT&T. Verizon has not had the iPhone as long, so they are still trying to push that a lot more. Verizon was not as willing to make the push AT&T is for Windows Phone, so Nokia went with who wanted them most. I think we will see some good Windows phones on Verizon in the coming year though. Not just from Nokia, but from Samsung and others as well.